What is 100 Days of Play?

Play starts today!

It’s #WorldSmileDay today. What could be a more perfect day to start my 100 Days of Play?

From today, I’m going to find a different type of play every day for the next one hundred, in order to explore play, find my own play, and learn about the different forms of play that make themselves available to us if we are only open to them.

Why Play?

As I hope you’ll have seen from the website, I believe that play is vitally important for living a balanced life, with humanity threaded through your experience of the universe. Without play life is dry and out of touch with the world around us. By reconnecting with our play – and, yes, taking ourselves a bit less seriously – we can be kinder, fuller, happier, more rounded beings.

I also believe that connecting to play is about connecting to our core being – the ‘inner pilot light’ that directs our intuition in the direction of our values. How can we expect to do work or participate in relationships that reflect our values if we are constantly resisting doing what we find fun?

100 different types of play?

I’ve been asked whether it’s really plausible that there are 100 different types of play. I say definitely. Some might not strike you as the most playful, fun, or the sort of things you’d want to do for play. That’s fine. That’s exploration!

‘Play’ – resisting any definition

Wittgenstein discussed how the concept of a ‘game’ resists any definition. If you think of something that might be the essence of a game:

having a goal;

competing with an opponent;

being played with physical objects;

being fun;

diverting yourself from the world around you

– you can always find a counter example.

I think the same is probably true with Play (though I’m not suggesting that the only sort of play is playing a game!). In the next 100 days I want to explore play in all its forms. Whether it’s scary play or boring play, unbounded play or play that isn’t fun.

What are the bounds of play, what are the edge cases, and what does it mean to be fully immersed in play?

Come and play with me

There will be some solo play. And there will be some play that happens only in my head. But for the most part I’ll be playing out in the world, and I’d love for you to join me. There’s a calendar on the main page of the website, so if anything grabs you, get in touch with the form below it, and we’ll find a way to play together!

Plus if you have any great ideas for play that I’ve missed, I’m open to every possible suggestion.

4 Comments

asachildbook
on 24/10/2017 at 2:46 pm

It’s interesting that ‘having a goal’ is listed as one of the things that makes a game – as, conversely, I think it is one of the things that makes an activity *not* play!
I would suggest that play happens when there is no goal beyond the activity itself – or, at least, that any external goal is secondary & subsidiary to the activity.
(I say external goal, because of course a goal can be an inherent part of the activity – aiming build a sandcastle, for example!)
This is why it is so difficult for work to be playful – because, almost by definition, any work has some external goal beyond the activity.
Even something we enjoy can become a chore if we feel that we have to do it.
It is, of course, possible for play to produce other benefits – but the more we focus on these benefits, the less like play it becomes.
Pure play, I’d suggest, is when we do something for no other reason than the sheer joy of doing so.

I think you’re pointing to something really interesting here. Philosophers talk about play being ‘autotelic’ – that is, having its own goal. I do think play tends to have an internal goal, whether it’s get the ball in the net or build a den out of twigs. It’s just that the goal doesn’t necessarily make sense from an external point of view.

Many thanks for your reply, Ben, and for the link to the article (I’ve followed Mathias). Your ‘100 Days’ has helped to revive & refocus my thoughts about play and playfulness, and I’m encouraged to write a short article on my (very infrequent & barely read!) blog. I will, of course, reference ‘100 Days’ as the inspiration, and will let you know when the article appears. It may be of no use or interest to anyone else, but it will help me! Many thanks.